[ale] md5sum weirdness on firefox -- SOLVED

Geoffrey lists at serioustechnology.com
Wed Mar 28 19:04:15 EDT 2007


Joe Bayes wrote:

> Problem 2: "md5sum firefox-1.5.0.9-3.fc6.i386.rpm" gives me the wrong
>   checksum, even when I download it several times and several
>   different ways. When I upload the "bad" binary to a third computer,
>   the md5sum checks out fine. (!!!)  
>   "md5sum firefox-1.5.0.10-5.fc6.i386.rpm" (note the version change)
>   gives the proper checksum. 
> 
> Solution 2: No, there's nothing wrong with md5sum: it was my
>   router. When my router does its own peculiar version of NAT, it
>   replaces 216.86.915.37 with 192.168.0.2 in incoming packets. In
>   outgoing packets, it reverses the process. Apparently it does this
>   substitution in packet data as well as in the routing information,
>   and firefox-1.5.0.9-3.fc6.i386.rpm just happened to contain (the
>   encoded representation of) 216.86.195.37 somewhere in the data.

This makes absolutely no sense to me.  If you downloaded the file, it 
should not contain any remnants of your network configuration.

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
  - Benjamin Franklin



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